Lisey finds a note on her door from Zack. He warns her that she needs to hand over Scott’s papers, then leaves Woodbody’s phone number. Instead of being afraid, Lisey is overwhelmed with rage.

Lisey calls Woodbody. His wife answers, then Woodbody gets on the phone. She immediately confronts him about Zack, demanding that Woodbody tell him to leave her alone. When she tells him about the dead cat, Woodbody explains what happened. He met Zack, who used the name “Jim Dooley” with Woodbody, at a bar near the university. They drank for several nights in a row and talked about Lisey, as they were both fans of Scott’s work. One night, Dooley claimed that he could convince Lisey to hand over Scott’s files. Woodbody admits that, sometimes, he felt like Dooley was dangerous, as he talked about prison and his life; other times, Woodbody was convinced that Dooley was lying and was completely harmless. They struck up a deal to have Dooley get the papers and, in exchange, Woodbody would pay for his expenses. Dooley gave him an email address, then Woodbody only saw him once after that. After just two emails, Dooley’s email address stopped working. This was several weeks ago, and Woodbody insists that he has not heard from Dooley again and has no way of contacting him.

At the end of the conversation, Lisey tells Woodbody that she is going to call the police. He begs with her not to, but Lisey insists that Woodbody is just as guilty as Dooley is. She warns him to tell his wife the truth now before the police get involved, then hangs up.

Sitting in her kitchen, Lisey decides that she needs a way to protect herself. She goes out to her car to get the shovel. Just before she opens the door, she spots a man standing by the barn. She opens her car, gets the shovel, and closes it. As a car nears, Lisey knows that its headlights will illuminate the man, so she prepares to swing the shovel. However, as the lights pass, she realizes that it is not a man but her lawnmower.

Lisey calls the sheriff’s department and speaks to Deputy Clutterbuck. He takes her statement and assures her that he will call Woodbody and look into Dooley. He then sends over Deputy Boeckman. He assures her that he will be nearby on her road to deter Dooley from visiting again.

After Boeckman leaves, Lisey suddenly becomes convinced that she needs to find an old cedar chest that she inherited from her mother, though she isn’t sure why. It contains things from the early part of her relationship with Scott, and she wonders if it might help her with her bool. She unsuccessfully searches the entire house. She then spends several minutes sobbing in bed before falling asleep.

Lisey wakes up to the phone ringing. It is her other sister, Cantata, who has just heard about Amanda. As Lisey talks to her, she spots her jeans from the day before on the floor. In the back pocket, the notebook that Amanda was writing in sticks out. She quickly finishes the phone call, then looks through the notebook. Near the back, she finds the word “Hollyhocks” written, then “4th Station: look under the bed” (196-7). She realizes that “Hollyhocks” is in Amanda’s writing, while the other words are in Scott’s.

Lisey has a vivid memory of a conversation she had with Scott about bools sitting under the willow tree out back. His older brother, Paul, used to make them for him when their father was at work. They would always have different “stations” with riddles that took them around the farm, then end with a prize at the end. When she returns from her memory, a sheriff’s deputy is at her door.

The deputy introduces himself as Alston. He is going to check in on her during the day until Boeckman is back on duty. He reminds her to lock her door but assures her that she will be safe.

After Alston leaves, Lisey remembers the bed in the barn that Scott had imported from Germany. She is then transported back to her memories of Germany.

In a flashback, Lisey and Scott spend nine months in Germany while he teaches a class at the university. He spends the weekdays teaching and then drinking at a bar nearby, often not returning until late at night. Lisey frequently thinks of having children, but Scott made it clear early in their relationship that he would never have them. He does very little writing, while they struggle with the landlord who refuses to repair things in their rental home. After, Scott has their bed shipped back from Germany, though Lisey refuses to sleep in it because of the memories.

In the present, Lisey goes to the bed in Scott’s office. Underneath, she finds her mother’s cedar box.

Darla calls Lisey and apologizes for contacting Cantata. She tells Lisey that Amanda is still unresponsive and that she is getting no updates from the doctor. Lisey assures her that she will go up and see Amanda and that Darla can go home. For the entire conversation, all she can think about is that she needs to get off the phone and look in the box.

After Darla hangs up, Lisey opens the box. It contains memorabilia from their wedding and the early part of their relationship. She finds a menu from The Antlers in Rome, New Hampshire. It is the hotel and restaurant they stopped at after their wedding as a small honeymoon, choosing it when they saw it on their drive. They wanted to stay for one night but ended up getting caught in a snowstorm and staying another. The hotel gave them snowshoes so that they could hike through the snow. They stopped under a willow tree, and Scott finally told her about his past. Lisey’s mind then goes back to that moment.

In the flashback, under the willow, Scott sets out their lunch. Lisey refers to the tree as a “yum-yum tree” (220), a name that she still uses years later. Nervous, he warns her that he needs to talk about his past, which may make her not want to stay with him. He never wants children, as conditions related to mental health run in his family. He insists that his relatives are all one of two things: “[G]oomers and bad-gunky” (222). In hindsight, Lisey knows that Amanda is an example of a “goomer,” as she has episodes of catatonia like some of Scott’s relatives. “Bad-gunky” is his term for those who self-harm. Scott explains that the day he put his hand through the greenhouse window, he had not let out the “bad-gunky” in a long time because his love for her allowed him to cope without it.

Scott then tells Lisey that he has four stories to tell her about his past. The first was a memory of his father, Sparky, and a blood-bool. It ended in the farmhouse, with Scott, at three years old, standing on a bench in the barn. His father yelled at him to jump from the bench. When he refused, Sparky repeatedly cut Paul, who was six, with a knife. Finally, seeing Paul’s bravery, Scott jumped, which made his father congratulate him and stop. Scott notes that his father went through abusive stretches where he dealt with the bad-gunky through blood-bools and harm to his children.

Scott’s next story is about a few days after the bench incident. When Sparky got through his mental health episode and returned to work, Paul set up a bool for Scott. It was 16 stations long and ended with them drinking RC cola in the bedroom. Lisey notes two things: First, that Paul had already healed from his dozens of cuts in those few days; and second, at only three years old, Scott was solving riddles and staying home alone with his six-year-old brother. After the bool, Scott and Paul each made a wish as they typically did. Scott wished for the bookmobile to come, while Paul wished that his father would die in an accident at work.

Scott tells Lisey that he can’t tell the other two parts of his story, and Lisey is greatly relieved, as she isn’t sure she can handle hearing it. She notes that Paul would die seven years later, at age 13, and Scott confirms this. He tells her that Sparky killed Paul with a rifle but that it wasn’t out of rage, a fact which unsettles Lisey greatly. He also explains that Scott killed his father later, burying him in the well on their land.

In the present, Lisey is horrified by the memory she had repressed. She becomes convinced that the point of Scott’s bool is to save Amanda, but isn’t sure that she can go behind the purple and remember everything to do so.